For quite some years now the Following Iyama Yuta thread and its predecessor have served as effectively a "Japanese title match news" thread. But with Iyama losing a few (Gosei to Kyo Kagen, Meijin to Cho U, Judan to Murukawa Dasiuke) I thought I'd make this one for following the others.

A few weeks ago Iyama lost to Ichiriki Ryo in the semi-finals of the Gosei challenger decision tournament, and Ichiriki yesterday lost to Hane Naoki (below), so Kyo will play the first game of the final on 30th June against 21-years-his-senior Hane. Hane won 8 big tiles in the years 2001-2011 (most recent was the Gosei) and was last in a final in 2012 so this is something of a comeback for him. Can he do a Cho U and win a title some years after his peak?

e6 rather than one of the attaches isn't a move unseen before AI (e.g. Bao Yun likes it after double low approach to 2-space high pincer and I tried it in one of my British title matches), but it is a move I've noticed AI sometimes has a marked preference for over the traditional attaches, so that's probably behind Kyo using it.

Game 3 was a few days ago, Kyo won to stay in the match at 1-2 now (first to 3 wins). Next game is 9th August.

Kyo Kagen won the 4th game too to set up a deciding 5th game on 23rd August.

Following along with LZ, one moment I found particularly interesting was move 27, where LZ thought Kyo's haengma was poor and there was a much better way (FineArt in the Fox commentarary agrees). Instead of h6 attach, which simply gets black out to the centre (with some shape problems) and doesn't capture the cutting stones (though Hane gave them up later, he shouldn't have), he should have leaned/offered a sacrifice at k4. This attempts to build a clearer miai of doing one job or another well intead of a bit of either poorly: either get the bottom group out with style by aiming at the k3 push and 2 cuts weaknesses, or get some forcing/inducing moves out of it and net the centre cutting stones. For example if white pushes through:

Here's the deciding 5th game of the Gosei, Kyo Kagen (black) vs Hane Naoki, so far:

Update: Hane won, and wins Gosei title. Kyo ignore the threat at last move in game above, then that top left side group became ko, Hane won that ko for bottom white temporarily dying but then top black group was almost dead and middle dying too when he resigned.

Interestingly this same opening is in a game today in the Kisei A league between Cho U (black again) and Ichiriki Ryo, and Ichiriki played the reduction recommended by LZ and FineArt instead of Atari on top like Shibano. I wonder did he find this move himself or review that game with AI.

Ichiriki blocked at b, which feels like a human fighting spirit move of "you ignored my shoulder hit which threatens to split the side so I'll do it". It also strengthens the White group by giving options for eyespace on the side. But the black groups above and below are both pretty safe so LZ says slow. It prefers to shoulder hit at a, another way of bolstering the group whilst simultaneously reducing Black's potential he just developed on the lower side with his last move. It's a 2 space jump but hard to cut directly given the forcing moves the shoulder hit threatens. A beautiful haengma. Cho responded with his own shoulder hit at c, leaning on the now strong group to grow the bottom, and Ichiriki played a now anyway (still the best move says LZ), but then Cho cut at d and a complicated fight erupted. So whilst people often say bot suggestions are complicated and hard to learn from, here the bot suggests a nice and simple move focused on keeping stones connected with good timing, whilst the humans went and made a complicated mess.

Today is the first day of the second Meijin game Cho Vs Shibano. I think Cho will be happy as Shibano didn't sabaki as well as bots thought he could whilst Cho got solid territory and can still harass him.

Here's the first day's play. With a 100 move variation of me exploring why LZ (low playouts on phone) why black didn't need to live in gote with his top group because if White tries to kill the outside weakness is a problem in a fight that sprawls to fill a quarter of the board.

Shibano won his first title match game to tie the score at 1-1. Cho used some reductions of the right side to create aji and engineered an attack on the black group coming out from the left, but Shibano managed to keep his lower right territory and not die.

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